March 7, 1945

March 7, 1945

949 W 12th St

San Pedro, Calif

Dear Father, Mother and the rest of the folks at home,

I am unaccountably tired tonite. I went to bed before ten last night so I should not be tired this evening but I am nonetheless. When I finish writing this letter I shall take a hot bath, and if I feel refreshed, draw for awhile; otherwise I shall lay in bed and read for awhile. Perhaps I am eating too much. I have such a hard time digesting the extra food that I am all tired out because of it.

Calif has produced some very snappy (for Calif) mornings lately. One morning it was down to 36°F, the coldest this winter. Up in the mountains, a considerable amount of snow has fallen and you see pictures of it in the papers every once in awhile. The weather has been clear tho since the Sunday rain. Yesterday morning the sunrise was very beautiful.

My work has been getting along considerably better this week, for which I am duly grateful. For awhile I was really in the dumps about it. By now I should realize that often enough you don’t seem to be getting anywhere in this game, but I feel disheartened when such is the case nonetheless.

I will look around for short, but I doubt that I will be able to get any at all, much less knit shorts. Calif is in general a poorer stocked place than almost anywhere else in the country probably because of the great influx of people. Even last summer, shorts here were almost unobtainable. When I was home on vacation last year I got three pairs at Larson Clothing Store in Ft. Dodge, but I suppose that the stores in Ft. Dodge have by now been denuded of their stocks. I see the O.P.A. has earmarked a certain percentage of cotton textile manufacture for low priced cotton clothing, so perhaps the situation will improve. I shall inquire at the local clothing store about the shorts, but I doubt that they will have any.

Last nite was Luther League. It was sort of a poorish meeting and didn’t get started on time.

Monday a charging line on one of the Dubbs cracking units at the Shell Dominguez refinery ruptured and a bad fire resulted. The operator died later from burns. The newspaper carried a lurid account which had the whole refinery wrecked. Actually the equipment damaged was almost obsolete. The paper also said it was a high-octane gasoline unit. Actually all they were doing in it was a very light cracking to produce a fuel oil to meet navy specifications. It was rather funny to see the discrepancy between the newspaper account and the actual facts.

Please don’t impute to me a wrong motive in giving Ann Marie the nickname, “Cupcake.” I think it is a compliment; at least I intended it to be so.

With love

C.P.

P.S. The scrapbooks I asked about are the 10¢ kind, and strictly nothing fancy.